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The Waaagh! is building. You can't stop it.

Under the "current" codex, most ork boys have 3 str and furious charge. To me this suggest that an ork hits just as hard as a space elf, or wimperial guardsmen.
I suggest a bump to str 4 and have furious charge restricted to the WAAAGH!!! ie; once per game.

Although Nobz are larger still, I don't feel they need the str adjustment as their impressive size can be represented by their extra wound.

Any thoughts on problems this could cause? Any other speculation on the statline for our new codex?

They should be S4, but WS3. After all, they're not master duelists. (Furious Charge on a WAAAGH would make WAAAGHing worthwhile, too. Currently it only matters for Dakkajets.)

Originally boyz had the same stats as a guardsman. At one point a white dwarf battle report featured Orks and IG with the boyz changed to having WS4 and BS2 and they thought it was so fun that they included it in the next codex. I do believe that they even had a better armour save (5+ flak? does anyone remember?), but were dropped down to having a 6+ while buffing their toughness for 3 to 4. That's how they ended up at their current stat line.

Bumping them up to S4 base would put their avalanche of attacks at risk (4 S5 WS4 attacks from a charging slugga boy for 6 points! That makes Grey Hunter's look totally reasonable lol).

However, missing from the current 4th edition codex are Skar boys (you can see mention of them on the nobs fluff page) which were otherwise regular boys but with base strength 4, basically exactly what you are looking for. A group of skar boys in a trukk would make for a nice little shock unit against many targets, doubly so if you could slap eavy armour on them too.

Perhaps allow one group of boys to be upgraded to skar boys for 2 ppm per Warboss?



On my own tangent, I'm a big fan of giving boyz Hammer of Wraith (wait wait, it's not that ridiculous). With base a Strength of 3 the boyz would only do enough damage to counteract a portion of many unit's overwatch and return their charge power to something slightly closer to 5th edition, and would even make up for 6th's nerf to Furious Charge. HoW would also preserve their charge strength somewhat for smaller units (shot up footsloggers or trukk boys) as the extra models further back in the unit would not be able to get into base-to-base for the HoW hit.

On average it would take:

-3 boyz in Base-to-base to kill a GEQ
-9 boyz in base-to-base to kill a MEQ
-18 boyz in base-to-base to kill a TEQ or biker

Personally it never made sense to me that orks will attack as strong as Tau (lol) or IG even though they are basicly twice there size (at least model wise) I think st4 base and wag furious would be fine.

Though probably a price check would be a good idea for the increase.

I'm thinking an increase in Str to 4 on *some* units, with SLugga Boys being the big one, but a reduction in attack sacross the board to just 1.

So, 1 attack +1 for slugga and choppa +1 when charging, with WS 4 and Strength 4. Darn scary for probably 5 pts a model.

I'd gladly exchange ws for bs in current edition

On the whole, yep, orkses are pretty tough and strong but the current stat system is not flexible enough to represent that. Regular boyz are still weaker than space marines but definitely stronger than humans, eldar or tau. But don't forget that close combat doesn't necessarily mean that you're fighting with your bare hands. So this str issue with firewarriors being equal to orkses can mean that they use some sort of gear more or less appropriate to increase their mellee capabilities...like shooting pulse rifles in da face.

It's more of a ballance thing with stats rather than fluff. From the effectiveness pov, i'd not pay points for more str on boyz even if i could. They just don't get in mellee now. But the idea of making them s4 and furious charge on WAAAGH seems great, to be honest. It's somewhat fluffy. But the problem is that s4 is somewhat a threshhold for hurting av10 and t7 stuff.

What might make it easier is a return of scarboyz. So you don't have to rework the whole army and pay extra points for the units that won't even use this +1 str. Just pay an extra point or two for those who will need this str. I think that with s4 and s5 on the charge, costing 7 pts they might see the board as truckboyz or wagonboyz. What about making it an upgrade like 'eavy armour? 1 squad per army can become Scar Boyz. For +1ppm they get +1 str. Seems fair. Yep, i know there will be people who'd say 1 ppm for +1 str is sooooo low! But take a note that it's +1pts for a 6+ save model that's not cavalry or something.

But what i'd do is total allowance for customization of your unit composition!
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/584700.page#6630828

Here's a thought: Currently, Shootas are infinitely preferable to Sluggas and Choppas. Make Choppas give +1 Str, but it's a 1 Point upgrade.

 Toburk wrote:

On my own tangent, I'm a big fan of giving boyz Hammer of Wraith (wait wait, it's not that ridiculous). With base a Strength of 3 the boyz would only do enough damage to counteract a portion of many unit's overwatch and return their charge power to something slightly closer to 5th edition, and would even make up for 6th's nerf to Furious Charge. HoW would also preserve their charge strength somewhat for smaller units (shot up footsloggers or trukk boys) as the extra models further back in the unit would not be able to get into base-to-base for the HoW hit.

On average it would take:

-3 boyz in Base-to-base to kill a GEQ
-9 boyz in base-to-base to kill a MEQ
-18 boyz in base-to-base to kill a TEQ or biker

I have to say I'm a big fan of this idea.

Having a swap from Ws 4 to 3 and strength 3 to 4 would seem about right, then drop one attack across the bored for Orks to make the difference between Shoota and Sluggas more prominent but to compensate make the Choppa AP 5 on the turn it charges. Now you have a big difference between Shoota's and Slugga's where in a close combat situation you will always want the Slugga over the shoota unlike now.

What do you think? This is all assuming the army wide 6+ FnP will be a thing (hoping, still hoping...).

AP5 choppa

No. We do not need this useless upgrade. If we get that, as the rumours suggest, I'm gonna be pissed

i think it makes sence because a boy has alot more physical strenghth than a guard so strength 4, same as gen. modified man? sounds good. I want to add move- run-assault back to Furious charge. (can possibly counter jump-shoot-jump suits..)

I'd be down for S4, WS3, but not A1

Agreed. Drop FC and give them S4 baseline.

Makes their charge just as hard, but makes them less reliant on it.

Just give them the old choppa rule back- "All armor is treated as being 4+ when hit by a choppa."

Waaaaagh!

No.

Boyz do not have armour piercing melee weapons.

They have lots of decent strength attacks, enough to overwhelm almost anything, but leave the AP and/or armour save messing to elite armies/units. (And powerklaws)

 Dakkamite wrote:

AP5 choppa

No. We do not need this useless upgrade. If we get that, as the rumours suggest, I'm gonna be pissed

+1


If orks are ws3, I'd like guardians to be that also, guardsmen to be ws2, and tau to be ws1.

^ That would be nice.

#csmplayer

(I don't mind WS2 cultists though)

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Having a swap from Ws 4 to 3 and strength 3 to 4 would seem about right, then drop one attack across the bored for Orks to make the difference between Shoota and Sluggas more prominent but to compensate make the Choppa AP 5 on the turn it charges. Now you have a big difference between Shoota's and Slugga's where in a close combat situation you will always want the Slugga over the shoota unlike now.

What do you think? This is all assuming the army wide 6+ FnP will be a thing (hoping, still hoping...).

This would be an enormous nerf. The current 4th edition shoota boy would have ~160% of the assaulting power vs GEQ as the proposed boy, even more so if the S4 boy didn't have FC. The proposed slugga boy with AP5 would only be slightly better than the 4th edition shoota boy, vs units with a 5+ save and actually be the same vs MEQ!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also keep in mind that WS is a defensive stat as well as offensive stat. WS3 boys would be taking 33% more wounds from WS4 models in addition to doing fewer wounds to WS3 models. They would also only hit WS7-8 models on a 5+.

I'd be fine with WS3 S4 Ork Boys. Fluff-wise, Orks are not skilled, just brutal, strong, and relentless. It doesn't make sense that they duel with Space Marines and come out as equals in terms of mere talent.
That being said, my ideal Ork Boyz have 6+ FNP instead of a t-shirt save, and would be only 5ppm.

Our group gave the ork codex as facelift a while back. We increased the basic slugga/shoota boy strength to a 4, but reduced their basic attack to 1 and allowing them to re-roll any 1's.

It makes them slightly more effective on the charge in most cases but weaker when getting charged when stuck in extended combats.

 Toburk wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Having a swap from Ws 4 to 3 and strength 3 to 4 would seem about right, then drop one attack across the bored for Orks to make the difference between Shoota and Sluggas more prominent but to compensate make the Choppa AP 5 on the turn it charges. Now you have a big difference between Shoota's and Slugga's where in a close combat situation you will always want the Slugga over the shoota unlike now.

What do you think? This is all assuming the army wide 6+ FnP will be a thing (hoping, still hoping...).

This would be an enormous nerf. The current 4th edition shoota boy would have ~160% of the assaulting power vs GEQ as the proposed boy, even more so if the S4 boy didn't have FC. The proposed slugga boy with AP5 would only be slightly better than the 4th edition shoota boy, vs units with a 5+ save and actually be the same vs MEQ!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also keep in mind that WS is a defensive stat as well as offensive stat. WS3 boys would be taking 33% more wounds from WS4 models in addition to doing fewer wounds to WS3 models. They would also only hit WS7-8 models on a 5+.

WS3 Boys would take 16.667% more hits, assuming the WS 4 guy is S4 the boys end up taking 5.79% more wounds overall

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

WS3 Boys would take 16.667% more hits, assuming the WS 4 guy is S4 the boys end up taking 5.79% more wounds overall

That's not how math works. The total number of attacks converted to hits would go from 50% to 66.67% (+16.67%), but that is an increase of 33.3% (66.67% is 133.3% of 50%). The rate that hits are converted to wounds is irrelevant, as it would always be constant.

For example:

WS4 S4 attacking WS4 T4

-1 attack
-0.5 hits
-0.25 wounds

WS4 S4 attacking WS3 T4

-1 attack
-0.67 hits
-0.33 wounds


As you can see the seconds result is equal to 133.3% of the first, or 33% greater.

I've tried out scarboyz and found that +2 pts for +1 str is a bit too cheap for what they do in mellee. Will try 3 pts next.

Ugh. Hated 'skarboys' as a unit. I get the idea, but I hate the execution. Experienced, dead 'ard boyz are nobs.

I don't think the boys need a boost to S4, as much as some other units in other books need to be nerfed back to S3. S4 is the province of Space Marines in powered armor, and most orks aren't that incredibly strong. Stronger than humies, yes, but S3 covers weedy astropaths all the way up to the beefiest Catachans already.

I can see arguments being made for WS3, but I still think that the average ork sees way more fights than almost any guardsman, and sees as much fighting as most rank and file Space Marines. The Marine's superiority is in their speed and strength, not in just pure combat-readiness.

I still think the choppa should be AP6 (since, orks being orks, they would probably wield weapons that were designed to go through orkish armor), and you could give the huge choppa AP4.

I honestly think that the boys are about right in the Strength range. The problem is the current game rules really hammer the ability of a unit to get into melee combat without being shot apart. That could be 'rebalanced' by making individual orks more terrifying in melee, but it isn't really right from a game perspective. I think the problem lies elsewhere.

FWIW, I'd favor some improvement of the Waaagh rule, rules reflecting the orkish eagerness to get into combat, and rules to represent the orkish propensity for fighting even after a killing shot (not FNP, since that allows you to just ignore some wounds). For one, I'd give orks a rule that allowed engaged Orks their full attacks even if they were slain earlier in the initiative order. I think that would make mass ork charges pretty brutal, even if few of the lads were around afterwards!

I still am not sure how the Waaagh became this singular 'thing' that happens during the battle, and I don't much care for it. I would prefer some sort of rule that boosted large mobs of orks whenever they were fighting. I don't have a rule in mind, or I would post it.